American journalists found out that the South Korean Aerospace Industries, which received a state contract for the supply of weapons for the US air force, appears in a criminal case of corruption initiated in South Korea.
According to the Washington Post, the Korean aviation company Korea Aerospace Industries did not provide data that a criminal case of corruption in South Korea was initiated against nine current and former leaders. Two weeks later, the firm won a contract with the U.S. air force worth up to $ 48 million.
On October 11, nine current and former executives in Korea Aerospace Industries were charged in Seoul, including bribery, embezzlement, and cheating on the South Korean government. Thus, the former President of KAI Ha Song Yong, who resigned in July this year, is suspected of creating a shadow Fund, the funds from which, allegedly, went to pay bribes to the assistants of the former President of the Republic of Korea Park Geun-Hye.
In addition, it turned out that Korea Aerospace paid 150 thousand dollars to the company Essential Consulting, associated with the lawyer of President Donald trump Michael Cohen. The company stated that the payment was for advice regarding accounting standards in the US. There is no evidence that he contributed to the receipt of the contract from the air force.
Experts said that the criminal case was to subject the company to additional verification. But KAI hasn’t changed the applications previously submitted to the US government confirming that none of its executives have been charged, according to a public database of Federal contract information.
Korea Aerospace Industries is also competing with Lockheed Martin for a $ 18 billion contract to provide more than 300 supersonic training aircraft to the us military.
Earlier, representatives of the Central Prosecutor’s office of Seoul asked the court to sentence the former Minister of Finance of South Korea Choi Kyung-hwan to eight years in prison. He is accused of illegally obtaining 100 million won from the Treasury of The national intelligence service in 2014, when he held the post of Minister of Finance.
